Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Sorted by date Results 1 - 25 of 137
(JTA) — A Palestinian poet and essayist who evacuated Gaza with his family and chronicled the experience of dislocation for the New Yorker has won the 2025 Pulitzer Prize for commentary. Mosab Abu Toha left Gaza in December 2023 — after being detained by Israeli soldiers, in an experience he chronicled in his writing — and moved in 2024 to Syracuse, New York, after receiving a visa permitting him to teach at Syracuse University. The Pulitzer committee recognized four essays by Abu Toha: one exploring his memories of a now-destroyed landscape; o...
(JTA) - An Israeli released from Hamas captivity earlier this year is objecting to the Pulitzer Prize awarded to Palestinian poet Mosab Abu Toha, charging that he is "the modern-day equivalent of a Holocaust denier" because of his derisive comments about her and other hostages. Emily Damari issued an open letter to the members of the Pulitzer Prize board on social media on May 8, saying that she had felt "shock and pain" when she saw that Abu Toha had received the prestigious award. She wrote,...
(JTA) - In his final public speech, delivered less than 24 hours before his death, Pope Francis addressed the war in Gaza, expressing sympathy for the Palestinian people and calling for an end to the war that includes the release of Israeli hostages. Francis made the comments in his annual Easter speech, which an archbishop delivered while Francis was seated on the balcony of St. Peter's Basilica in Rome. His comments about the war in Gaza, which Israel and Hamas have been fighting since Oct....
(JTA) - Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro revealed on Thursday that investigators had managed to retrieve ritual Passover items from the dining room that was heavily damaged by an arsonist's fire shortly after his family's seder on Saturday night. "Some just required a dusting and a cleaning," he said outside a Harrisburg firehouse where he and his wife Lori were serving lunch to first responders who rescued his family and doused the flames early Sunday morning. "Others are destroyed." Shapiro,...
(JTA) — As Donald Trump took office in January, many who have kept a close eye on Israel’s efforts to blunt Iran’s nuclear ambitions believed the timing was ripe for a decisive strike. Iran had been deeply weakened by Israel’s direct attacks and wars with its proxies, and Trump was seen as open to being convinced to provide the crucial U.S. support that would be needed to pull off an attack on Iran’s fortified nuclear sites. But ultimately Trump batted away a specific Israeli plan for a strike in May, the New York Times reported on Thursday....
(JTA) — As Sen. Cory Booker broke the record for the longest Senate speech and made clear he was going for 25 hours, Jewish social media lit up with jokes. “This is the closest Cory Booker will get to experiencing Yom Kippur,” tweeted Sami Sage, the co-founder of Betches Media, in one representative post. As Jews do on Yom Kippur, Booker fasted during his entire Senate speech, consuming only a few sips of water. He also apologized for his and his party’s errors that allowed Donald Trump to retake the presidency. And with the help of his Dem...
(JTA) — The Nova music festival, where more than 350 people were murdered on Oct. 7, 2023, has quickly become one of the most visited tourist destinations in Israel. More than 200,000 people per month visited the site, at Kibbutz Reim near the Gaza border, on average over the last six months, according to Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael–Jewish National Fund. If sustained, that pace would put Nova on track to draw more visitors than the Dead Sea or Tel Aviv’s Anu Museum, which focuses on the Jewis...
(JTA) - Isaac Henrion makes and sells bagels for a living. But when he spent Sunday afternoon at the local Jewish food festival in Durham, North Carolina, he didn't bring any of his own fare. It's not that he hadn't signed up as a vendor. It's that he had abruptly pulled out his store, Isaac's Bagels, after facing criticism over his cooperation with the festival organizer, a Jewish group that supports Israel. Then, that decision set off another round of criticism from Jewish customers and...
(JTA) - Adrien Brody nabbed an Academy Award Sunday for his portrayal of an architect in "The Brutalist," marking the second Oscar for the Jewish actor. Mikey Madison, who is Jewish, also won best actress for her role in "Anora," which won best picture. Both of Brody's best actor wins came for portrayals of Holocaust survivors. In 2003, he received the best actor for his performance in "The Pianist," in which he played Władysław Szpilman, who was among a handful of Jews to survive the Warsaw g...
(JTA) - The oldest hostage in Gaza is not alive, Israeli authorities announced on Tuesday. Shlomo Mantzur was killed 16 months ago, during Hamas' attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, and his body was taken to Gaza, Israeli officials said they determined after assessing intelligence data gathered in recent months. He was 85 at the time and is survived by a wife, five children and 12 grandchildren. Mantzur, who moved to Israel as a child after his family fled their native Iraq following the 1941...
(JTA) — An American-Israeli released from Gaza during the current Israel-Hamas ceasefire is exhorting President Donald Trump to press for the release of the remaining hostages. “President Trump, you are the reason I am home alive. You are the reason I was reunited with my beloved wife, four children and five grandchildren. Thank you,” Siegel says in a video released by his family and hostage advocacy groups. “Thank you for your continued fight against terror and for your bold leadership that has brought me and many others back home, to our fam...
(JTA) — Reactions from partisan American Jewish groups to President Donald Trump’s proposals for Gaza — that “all” Palestinians leave and the United States “take over” the territory — began flowing in just as soon as their leaders picked their jaws up off the floor on Tuesday night. The proposals — the latter of which was reportedly secret to even many in the Trump administration before the president aired it at a White House press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — elicited sharp revulsion from liberal Jewish grou...
(JTA) - The actor who played Rabbi Noah Roklov on Netflix's hit interfaith romcom "Nobody Wants This" has taken home the Critics Choice Award for best actor in a comedy series. Adam Brody, who himself is Jewish, won the prize at an awards ceremony in Santa Monica, California, on Friday. The prize was presented by Rachel Brosnahan, who is best known for playing the Jewish lead in "The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel." In his acceptance speech, Brody nodded at the show's premise while addressing costar...
(JTA) — A performer unfurled a banner showing the Sudanese and Palestinian flags and the words “Sudan” and “Gaza” during Kendrick Lamar’s halftime show at Super Bowl LIX in New Orleans on Sunday. The performer, who was not immediately identified, was detained on the field and will be barred from all NFL stadiums for the rest of his life, the NFL said in a statement. The football organization and Roc Nation, which produced the halftime show, said the flag had not been part of any plan or rehearsal. “The individual hid the item on his possessio...
(JTA) — President Donald Trump says he has asked Jordan to accept Palestinians from Gaza and plans to press Egypt to do the same. Trump said he spoke to Jordan’s King Abdullah II on Saturday, five days after being inaugurated for his second term and six days into a ceasefire that he pressed for in the Israel-Hamas war. “I said to him I’d love you to take on more because I’m looking at the whole Gaza Strip right now and it’s a mess, it’s a real mess. I’d like him to take people,” Trump told reporters Saturday night aboard Air Force One followi...
(JTA) — Police in Tennessee are investigating whether an antisemitic manifesto posted online was written by a teenager accused of carrying out a fatal school shooting in Nashville on Jan. 22. The alleged shooter at Antioch High School appears to have posted a livestream of the shooting as well as content on his social media accounts prior to the attack, in which one student was killed. The material was removed after its connection to the shooting became known. According to The Tennessean newspaper, the materials attributed to the shooter, i...
(JTA) — Hosting “Saturday Night Live” in its final broadcast before the inauguration of Donald Trump, comedian Dave Chappelle concluded with advice for the new president. “Do not forget your humanity,” Chappelle said. “And please, have empathy for displaced people, whether they’re in the Palisades or Palestine.” The line represented Chappelle’s signature mix of humor and serious sermonizing and came after a nearly 15-minute monologue that acknowledged his own controversies as a comedian and included an extended anecdote about President Jimmy Ca...
(JTA) — After the hostages return to Israel, peace takes hold in the Middle East. Army recruitment offices are shuttered; Israelis shelve the second passports that let them live abroad; and trains run uninterrupted from Egypt to Syria. Soon, Israeli and Iranian judokas embrace, and Israel advances in the World Cup. Ultimately, Taylor Swift takes the stage in Tel Aviv. The sequence of events exceeds even the wildest ambitions of most Israelis, who know from experience that peace, when it c...
(JTA) - A synagogue with more than 100 years of history in Pasadena, California, burned down overnight as fires swept across parts of Southern California. The fate of a Chabad center about 40 miles away near the coast was unclear as a major fire flared in the Pacific Palisades, one of three different blazes destroying structures and threatening lives in multiple pockets of the greater Los Angeles area. Additional Jewish institutions lay in evacuation zones, while others took preparations in...
(JTA) — Two blocks away: a school reduced to ruins. Across the street: rubble. Under the door: ashes. And yet at Kehillat Israel, things look much the same as they did at the beginning of the week, before the fires. That’s what the clergy found when they reentered their synagogue’s building on Thursday in the wake of the blaze that devastated Pacific Palisades. A reporter with NBC News who himself grew up at Kehillat Israel accompanied Rabbi Amy Bernstein, Rabbi Daniel Sher and Cantor Chayim Frenkel as they took stock of their synagogue’s remar...
(JTA) - Jewish groups are mourning Jimmy Carter, the former president and broker of Israel's peace deal with Egypt who died Sunday at 100. In statements issued following his death, many of the groups are citing the peace deal and other landmark moments in Carter's presidency, which stretched from 1977 to 1981, as examples of Carter's legacy. Several of them are also acknowledging that in his post-presidency, the longest in American history, Carter aggrieved some American Jews by aggressively...
(JTA) — Israel is closing its embassy in Dublin in response to the Irish government’s criticism, Israel’s foreign minister announced on Sunday. The move does not end diplomatic relations between the two countries. Still, it offers a dramatic illustration of how Gideon Saar, who became foreign minister last month after a rapprochement with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, is approaching ties with countries that are critical of Israel. In a statement on social media, Saar cited Ireland’s recognition of a Palestinian state, its support for cas...
(JTA) — A ballistic missile fired from Yemen severely damaged a Tel Aviv-area school early Thursday morning, in some of the most significant damage yet in an ongoing barrage from Houthi rebels based there. No children were present at the school in the suburb of Ramat Gan, which officials said would be rebuilt, and would reopen in another already constructed building within weeks. The rocket, which Israel partially intercepted, was fired as Israeli fighter jets were on their way to Yemen to target Houthi positions there. Dozens of jets t...
(JTA) — Among the legions of Grateful Dead fans mourning Phil Lesh are a small but devoted cohort of Jewish Deadheads with memories of celebrating Passover with him. “To life! To Phil! Our love will not fade away! Eternally grateful,” the Jewish vocalist Jeannette Ferber posted on Facebook, alongside a picture showing herself with Lesh at a seder. Lesh, the legendary jam band’s bassist, died Friday at 84. His Instagram account, which announced his death without specifying a cause, said Lesh wa...
(JTA) — Speaking at a campaign rally in Georgia on Monday night, Donald Trump said the Kamala Harris campaign was painting him and his supporters as Nazis, a charge he rejected forcefully. “I’m not a Nazi. I’m the opposite of a Nazi,” Trump said to cheers. The comments, which come a week before Election Day, represent an unusual statement by a presidential candidate. They also represent the latest fallout since Trump’s former chief of staff, John Kelly, last week said in on-the-record interviews that Trump had expressed admiration for Hitler...
